


The Long Road

by insanityinside



Category: Dororo (Manga)
Genre: Bittersweet Ending, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, not quite AU but it feels like one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-05-16 13:09:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19318837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/insanityinside/pseuds/insanityinside
Summary: Hyakkimaru's quest is complete. It took longer than he expected.





	The Long Road

**Author's Note:**

> So a while ago I remembered how the manga's ending mentions the Hall of Hell burning down fifty years later and thought 'What if that was supposed to mean _this_ is when the last demon dies?' And then this idea got stuck in my head and the only way to get it out was to write it.  
> Not canon-compliant with any of the adaptations, I think.  
> May or may not get more chapters later on, because my head is now full of little scenes that could happen within this continuity, but I'm not sure I'll be able to write them any time soon.

At the crossroads it suddenly hits Hyakkimaru that he has no idea where he is going. He looks down at his left hand, as though expecting it to provide some sort of clue. It’s been a little over a month and his left arm is still a little paler than his right, its skin softer and less callused. It looks almost like it belongs to someone much younger. But it is his own. It figures, really, that this was the last thing he reclaimed. Fate has a flair for the dramatic sometimes. Of course it wouldn’t let him lay down his blade until his quest was complete. Even if it took longer than he expected.

But now his sword rests in a scabbard at his belt and every part of his body is where it ought to be. Well. He’s lost a couple of teeth over the years and his hair is not quite as thick as it was when it first started growing. But that sort of thing is normal at his age. He is, for all intents and purposes, a normal human being. And it only took him, what, fifty years, give or take a few.

It’s odd, really, he thinks as he walks down a path he chose at random. He took care of the first twenty or so demons within the first year of his journey, but the fewer of them were still out there, the harder they were to find. Perhaps they learned somehow what had happened to the others? Maybe they knew better than to go out of their way to pick a fight? Some of the smartest, sneakiest, _nastiest_ ones took him years to track down. But now, at long last, they’re all gone. Hyakkimaru is not sure what he’s supposed to do now.

When he was young he always assumed he’d just go home, at least for a while. He would imagine himself returning triumphantly to his childhood home, whole and curse-free, any month now. This is not what happened. In the end, just a few years ago, he ended up coming back, a tired vagabond with a busted prosthetic arm. He had hoped that his dear old dad would help him fix the worn out mechanism, but when he arrived the doctor was in no condition to do that. Jukai was on his deathbed by then and, since he was the only doctor in the area, there was noone there to treat him. Hyakkimaru offered to do whatever he could to help. His own medical knowledge was limited, but surely he could follow directions?

‘It’s too late now,’ Jukai said with a small sad laugh ‘And besides, do you have any idea how old I am? It was bound to happen sooner or later. I’m just glad I got to see you one more time.’

So Hyakkimaru stayed with him until the end. The evil spirits stalking him still hadn’t given up, so he spent most of this time chasing them away from the dying man. At least he got to properly see his face and hear his voice. And he’s sure will never forget the look on the old man’s face when he realized who his unexpected guest was.

He left just after the funeral. He had no reason to stay in a town where noone recognized him. The people he met there assumed that he was one of the doctor’s former patients who happened to be passing through when the sad news reached him.

‘Something like that, yeah,’ he said, avoiding eye contact. He was not in the mood to share the story of his life and they were not _entirely_ wrong.

 

As he sets up camp for the night, he forces himself to think about something happier. Like the good old days. Although he’s traveled alone for most of his life, he always looks back fondly on the days when Dororo followed him around everywhere. Was it a mistake to leave the kid behind? Not really, he thinks, but only because he eventually ended up coming back to visit him many times.

Dororo still insists that he is a man. He even went so far as to marry a woman. Hyakkimaru found out about it several months later, when his friend chewed him out for missing the wedding. He said he’d never got the invitation. Dororo looked sheepish.

‘I... to be honest, I assumed you’d just kind of... turn up?’

A few years later the couple adopted three children, orphans from a nearby village destroyed by the war. Last time Hyakkimaru heard from them, the oldest daughter was expecting a baby of her own. Which means the little kid who started following him around all those years ago is now a grandpa! When the hell did that happen?

Hyakkimaru never ended up starting a family of his own. He was young enough when he acquired the relevant equipment, and he’s had a few opportunities to use it, but all his relationships have been short-lived, doomed to fail from the start. He supposes it was his inability to stay put that was the problem. Even now that nothing is chasing him and he is not chasing anything anymore, he’s not sure how long he’d be able to stay in one place. He’s been on the move for far too long.

For the last month or so he’s been wandering more or less aimlessly, without even thinking about it. Now, as he rests after another day of walking, he recalls a conversation he had, a long, long time ago, with that weird old monk. What was his name again? He’s pretty sure he never knew. He didn’t find out the first two or three times they ran into each other and later it would have been too awkward to ask. Come to think of it, he hasn’t seen the man in decades. If he’s even still alive, he’d have to be well over a hundred years old. Assuming he wasn’t some kind of immortal mystical being to begin with. This strange man once asked him what he planned to do once he’s got his entire body back. He didn’t really have an answer to that back then. Now, years too late, he thinks ‘Well, I could try sneaking up on unsuspecting travelers to dispense cryptic wisdom’ would have been a good one.

In all honesty, though, he always thought that once he’s become a normal person he would just do what normal people do. Learn a trade, get married, have children, live an ordinary life. At this point, though, he can no longer see himself doing any of those things. Too much time has passed and now these normal parts of being human are forever lost to him. He wonders just how many things he’s truly been robbed of that he can never get back.

He stays up long into the night, sitting by his small fire, watching the flames flicker. He feels the chill of the night on his back. He reaches out, with both hands, towards the fire to feel its warmth. He listens to the little sounds of the dark forest. He takes in the moment with all his senses, as if all the sensations are still new to him. Normal people take so many things for granted. That’s another thing. Another way in which he will probably never be a normal person. But this one doesn’t bother him very much.

 


End file.
